Thank you for the info. I remember this story well and its interesting to know how things have played out over the years. Send it to us! A team of state psychiatrists certified that Smith was competent to stand trial. It was such an unbearable thing.". Well, people can change. On Oct. 17, according to Findlay, Smith gave him a greeting card and a handwritten letter accepting their breakup with equanimity and pledging her eternal friendship, saying, "I will always love and care for you the rest of my life. In 2019, 25 years after the incident, PEOPLE obtained records. Hours later, a co-worker called to ask if he had heard the news about Susan-- and Findlay's first thought was, "Oh my God, she's killed herself. ", Paul Patrick, a florist, says, "It was a real tragedy but I don't think anybody's still dwelling on it three years later. (Cary Findlay has denied any involvement with Smith.) In her confession, she stated that she wanted to die and was going to her mothers house, but she gave up. But the rich, handsome 27-years-old broke things off with her in October writing Smith a letter clarifying he wasn't ready for a relationship involving kids. In fact, its probably someone that you may not know at this time or that you may know, but would never expect. "Susan, I could really fall for you," he continued. night and would take it back in a (heart-shaped design) beat if I could. If Smith in fact was rational, why risk a police investigation? "We all felt like Susan was a really disturbed person," said juror Deborah Benvenuti. These evil perverts should be castrated (preferably with a blunt knife). She then became a little to obsessed when Tom Findlay sent her a Dear John letter . The divers found the car upside down, with the children hanging on to their seats. After initially standing by Susans side until he learned the truth and then grieving over the small caskets of his boys at their funeral while Susanwas in jail, it now appears David has been able to move on. Source: http://www.thomasandrewart.com/KathyKemparticle.html. Bev stayed away from the family for a few weeks, but after a few sessions of family counseling he returned to normal family life. One of the biggest clues that led authorities to believe Susan was lying was her story about stopping at a red light on Monarch Mills Road. Smith was separated from her now-ex-husband, and started dating Tom Findlay, whose father owned the mill she worked at. "She was crying--she was very upset," Findlay said. Linda and her children moved from their small modest home to Bevs house, located in a great location in Union. Shortly after joining the company she was promoted to the position of executive secretary to Consos president and CEO, Carey Findlay. Russell signed a statement admitting his conduct and the family sought counseling-but Susan and her mother said they didn't want to prosecute. THE MARGIN OF ERROR IS +/- 4 PERCENTAGE POINTS. I mean, one minute you were a kid, and the next minute you were having kids. As a $17,000-a-year secretary to Cary Findlay, Smith worked for one of Union's wealthiest people. Caso Criminal 2023 - All rights reserved. "Susan, I am not mad at you about what happened" at the hot-tub party, Findlay wrote. And it brought her David Bruck. http://www.people.com/people/archive/article/0,,20358219,00.html Chicago Tribune. However, a letter sent by Tom Findlay took Susan by surprise. . Despite its steamy undertones--despite the ripe mixture of family dysfunction and sexual shenanigans-the Smith case is ultimately a story of heartbreaking human loss. If a mother who deliberately drowns her children in a pique over a failed romance doesn't deserve to die, who does? First, it is important to choose the right type of planter and support system for your plants. Idania Pena sent a letter from Miami: "In loving memory of two beautiful creatures that perished in the hands of the person they most trusted: their own mother. Susan Smith's crimes landed her a life sentence WYFF News 4/YouTube After Susan Smith and her ex-husband David separated for the final time around 1994, the young woman soon entered what in. The contempt for Susan was overwhelming, not only because of the racial tension triggered by the false accusation of a black man, but because her motive was extremely futile and selfish: to get rid of her children in order to maintain a relationship with a rich man. . ``I want you to know that I have never felt with anyone, the way I feel when Im with you. Susan was devastated by the end of her relationship with Tom. She was told to press charges, which she refused to do. Name: Susan Vaughan Smith D.O.B: September 26, 1971 Place of Birth: Union, South Carolina Parents: Linda & Harry Vaughan Conviction Date: July 22, 1995 Sentence: LIFE . Thank you for this well written article. If you want to catch a nice guy like me one day, you have to act like a nice girl. Excerpts from a letter Susan Smith wrote to Tom Findlay on Oct. 17, and his reply, written the same day and given to her Oct. 18. premieres Friday, June 4, at 10 p.m. on Lifetime. The letter about the reasons for the breakup, written by Tom, was also inside the car. David Smith worked in the store as a produce clerk. She soon became pregnant and they decided to get married. Bev was influential in the community, had good lawyers who would know how to successfully suppress situations like this. Susan Smith has been returned to her tiny cell at the Women's Correctional Institution in Columbia, S.C. She has no personal possessions, no contact with other inmates and she wears only paper gowns--a precaution against suicide, because real clothes can be turned into nooses. Before she and David began to date, Susan told a psychiatrist, she had an affair with a store manager who was subsequently transferred out of town. At the time David was engaged to another woman and broke it off to be with Susan. In November 1992, the couple resumed their relationship upon the news of Susans new pregnancy. And you know, nice girls dont sleep with married men. However, RST 106 on large potato leaved types did well when grown in grow bags. Her descent began with the divorce of her parents in 1977, when Susan was 6 years old. She wept and rocked in her seat as he described seeing "a small hand" pressed against the glass of the car window. Sordid and tragic and powerfully real, Susan Smith's story begins with sex and ends with the murder of innocents. Findlay said he had begun seeing Smith again last September after she assured him that she was in the process of divorcing her husband, a 24-year-old produce worker at the local Winn-Dixie where Susan Smith worked before becoming a secretary at Conso, the local plant owned by Findlay's father. Actually, he is online. On top of that, Ms. Smith later said that a cause of her depression was her breakup with Conso employee Tom . But today's most titillating testimony came from Findlay, the 28-year-old son of a wealthy textile manufacturer and the man whose rejection prosecutors say drove Smith to drown her sons. In the past nine years, Smith has been disciplined at least five times, including self-mutilation and the use and possession of narcotics or marijuana. He also reiterated that at no point, he suggested that her children were the only obstacle in any potential relationship with her., Something went very wrong that night. I dont blame him for declining interviews and book deals and disappearing. I will always be here for you! Citizens support the death penalty in general, but frequently refuse to apply it when, as in the Smith case, they are confronted with a face, a name and human frailties that, however lurid, bear at least some resemblance to their own. Linda Vaughan married stockbroker Beverly Russell, the son of a leading local family, about a year and a half later. "He was threatening to her. "There will always be something to remind each of us that such a thing happened here," she says. She will be eligible for parole in 2025 when she is 53 years old. Actually, I am very thankful. Tom Findlay, Susan Smith's ex-lover, started a new life in Birmingham, Ala. Cary Findlay, who is Tom Findlay's father and Susan Smith's former employer, let his mansion become a. Most of them have left town. I love writing and I also love criminal cases, nothing better than combining business with pleasure. David never questioned the paternity of the child despite their separation. . All the time, people bring them gifts. Killing her sons was a horrifying act that bespeaks a personality crisis: at that moment, she must have been emotionally numb. In January 1994, Susan started dating a co-worker from her job at Conso Products Tom Findlay. Then she drove out to John D. Long Lake and let her maroon Mazda Protege roll into the reddish-brown water. Who is he to be dishing out advice? With all of the crazy, mixed-up things that take place in this world today, I just dont have the desire to bring another life into it. To be the perfect woman for a rich man. But like I have told you before, there are some things about you that arent suited for me, and yes, I am speaking about your children. TUESDAY, Oct. 18, 1994 _ Susan Smith's boyfriend, Tom Findlay, breaks off their relationship saying he doesn't want the responsibility of children. The report says Linda later asked Beverly about Susan's story "and he didn't deny that it had happened. A guardrail now barricades the parking lot. For. 1000s of new photos added daily. In the years since the murders, Davidhas switchedto a career as a commercial truck driver, moved 25 miles away from Union to the town of Moore, S.C., married Tiffany in 2003 and became the father to a girl and a boy, Savannah and Nicolas. Recently, someone gave them a toy truck, a tiny plastic horse, two pinwheels (one for each brother), a plaster angel kneeling in prayer, a $2 bouquet of supermarket flowers and miniature wind chimes, left to tinkle softly in the country graveyard. That poor. But they also said she suffered from a mental illness that could have affected her behavior, and one of the shrinks, Dr. Donald Morgan, startled the court by warning that Smith was clearly suicidal and might sabotage her own defense. "Giving her the death penalty wouldn't serve justice.". Im sure that your kids are good kids, but it really wouldnt matter how good they may be the fact is, I just dont want children. In Northern California, side grafting wasnt very successful either. The letter gave reasons justifying the end of the relationship. ", To prosecutors, Findlay's emphasis on the children was Smith's motive for murder. The mom of two made headlines at the time of the news due to her shocking motive and she has since been behaving herself behind bars, which means she could soon be a free woman. Union - isn't that where that woman drowned her babies? THE BOYFRIEND'S STORY. Allen, for one, doesn't need reminders. UNION, S.C., July 19 -- Susan Smith's former boyfriend testified Wednesday that one week before she drowned her children he told her in a letter that her sons made their relationship. +/- 4 PERCENTAGE POINTS when Im with you, PEOPLE obtained records the I! Is 53 years old really fall for you, '' she says one minute you were kids! 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